Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

Cassandra

  O my poor land laid waste with flame and fire!

  O ruined city overthrown by fate!

  Ah, what availed the offerings of my Sire

  To keep the foreign foemen from the gate!

  Ah, what availed the herds of pasturing kine

  To save my country from the wrath divine!

  Ah, neither prayer nor priest availed aught,

  Nor the strong captains that so stoutly fought,

  For the tall town lies desolate and low.

  And I, the singer of this song of woe,

  Know, by the fires burning in my brain,

  That Death, the healer of all earthly pain,

  Is close at hand! I will not shirk the blow.

  A VISION

  Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone

  With no green weight of laurels round his head,

  But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,

  And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan

  For sins no bleating victim can atone,

  And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.

  Girt was he in a garment black and red,

  And at his feet I marked a broken stone

  Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.

  Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame

  I cried to Beatrice, ‘Who are these?’

  And she made answer, knowing well each name,

  ‘Aeschylos first, the second Sophokles,

  And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’

  SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY

  I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,

  Italia, my Italia, at thy name:

  And when from out the mountain’s heart I came

  And saw the land for which my life had yearned,

  I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:

  And musing on the marvel of thy fame

  I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame

  The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

  The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,

  And in the orchards every twining spray

  Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:

  But when I knew that far away at Rome

  In evil bonds a second Peter lay,

  I wept to see the land so very fair.

  Turin

  SONNET

  Written in Holy Week at Genoa

  I wandered in Scoglietto’s far retreat,

  The oranges on each o’erhanging spray

  Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;

  Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet

  Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet

  Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:

  And the curved waves that streaked the great, green bay

  Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.

  Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,

  ‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,

  O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers.’

  Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours

  Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,

  The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

  IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE

  The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky

  Burned like a heated opal through the air;

  We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair

  For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.

  From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye

  Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,

  Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,

  And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.

  The flapping of the sail against the mast,

  The ripple of the water on the side,

  The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,

  The only sounds: – when ‘gan the West to burn,

  And a red sun upon the seas to ride.

  I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

  Katakolo

  THE THEATRE AT ARGOS

  Nettles and poppy mar each rock-hewn seat:

  No poet crowned with olive deathlessly

  Chants his glad song, nor clamorous Tragedy

  Startles the air; green corn is waving sweet

  Where once the Chorus danced to measures fleet;

  Far to the East a purple stretch of sea,

  The cliffs of gold that prisoned Danae;

  And desecrated Argos at my feet.

  No season now to mourn the days of old,

  A nation’s shipwreck on the rocks of Time,

  Or the dread storms of all-devouring Fate,

  For now the peoples clamour at our gate,

  The world is full of plague and sin and crime,

  And God Himself is half-dethroned for Gold!

  Argos, 1877

  URBS SACRA AETERNA1

  Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;

  In the first days thy sword republican

  Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:

  Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,

  Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;

  And now upon thy walls the breezes fan

  (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)

  The hated flag of red and white and green.

  When was thy glory! when in search for power

  Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,

  And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?

  Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,

  When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,

  The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

  Monte Mario

  THE GRAVE OF KEATS

  Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,

  He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:

  Taken from life when life and love were new

  The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,

  Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.

  No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,

  But gentle violets weeping with the dew

  Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.

  O proudest heart that broke for misery!

  O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!

  O poet-painter of our English Land!

  Thy name was writ in water – it shall stand:

  And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,

  As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

  Rome

  SONNET

  On the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria

  Christ, dost thou live indeed? Or are thy bones

  Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?

  And was thy Rising only dreamed by Her

  Whose love of thee for all her sin atones?

  For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,

  The priests who call upon thy name are slain,

  Dost thou not hear the bitter wail of pain

  From those whose children lie upon the stones?

  Come down, O Son of God! Incestuous gloom

  Curtains the land, and through the starless night

  Over thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!

  If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb

  Come down, O Son of Man! And show thy might,

  Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

  EASTER DAY

  The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:

  The people knelt upon the ground with awe:

  And borne upon the necks of men I saw,

  Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.

  Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,

  And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,

  Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:

  In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.

  My heart stole back across wide wastes of years

  To One who wander
ed by a lonely sea,

  And sought in vain for any place of rest:

  ‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest.

  I, only I, must wander wearily,

  And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’

  SONNET

  On Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the Sistine Chapel

  Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,

  Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,

  Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love

  Than terrors of red flame and thundering.

  The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:

  A bird at evening flying to its nest

  Tells me of One who had no place of rest:

  I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.

  Come rather on some autumn afternoon,

  When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,

  And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song.

  Come when the splendid fulness of the moon

  Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,

  And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

  ITALIA

  Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen

  Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride

  From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!

  Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen

  Because rich gold in every town is seen,

  And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride

  Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride

  Beneath one flag of red and white and green.

  O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain!

  Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town

  Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!

  Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?

  Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,

  And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

  Venice

  VITA NUOVA

  I stood by the unvintageable sea

  Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;

  The long red fires of the dying day

  Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;

  And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:

  ‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘My life is full of pain,

  And who can garner fruit or golden grain

  From these waste fields which travel ceaselessly!’

  My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,

  Nathless I threw them as my final cast

  Into the sea, and waited for the end.

  When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw

  The argent splendour of white limbs ascend,

  And in that joy forgot my tortured past.

  E TENEBRIS1

  Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,

  For I am drowning in a stormier sea

  Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:

  The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,

  My heart is as some famine-murdered land

  Whence all good things have perished utterly,

  And well I know my soul in Hell must lie

  If I this night before God’s throne should stand.

  ‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,

  Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name

  From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’

  Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,

  The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,

  The wounded hands, the weary human face.

  QUANTUM MUTATA2

  There was a time in Europe long ago

  When no man died for freedom anywhere,

  But England’s lion leaping from its lair

  Laid hands on the oppressor! It was so

  While England could a great Republic show.

  Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care

  Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair

  The Pontiff in his painted portico

  Trembled before our stern ambassadors.

  How comes it then that from such high estate

  We have thus fallen, save that Luxury

  With barren merchandise piles up the gate

  Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:

  Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.

  TO MILTON

  Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away

  From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;

  This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours

  Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,

  And the age changed unto a mimic play

  Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:

  For all our pomp and pageantry and powers

  We are but fit to delve the common clay,

  Seeing this little isle on which we stand,

  This England, this sea-lion of the sea,

  By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,

  Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land

  Which bare a triple empire in her hand

  When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

  AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA1

  Was this His coming! I had hoped to see

  A scene of wondrous glory, as was told

  Of some great God who in a rain of gold

  Broke open bars and fell on Danae:

  Or a dread vision as when Semele

  Sickening for love and unappeased desire

  Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire

  Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:

  With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,

  And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand

  Before this supreme mystery of Love:

  A kneeling girl with passionless pale face,

  An angel with a lily in his hand,

  And over both the white wings of a Dove.

  Florence

  WASTED DAYS1

  From a picture painted by Miss V. T.2

  A fair slim boy not made for this world’s pain,

  With hair of gold thick clustering round his ears,

  And longing eyes half veiled by foolish tears

  Like bluest water seen through mists of rain;

  Pale cheeks whereon no kiss hath left its stain,

  Red under-lip drawn in for fear of Love,

  And white throat whiter than the breast of dove –

  Alas! Alas! If all should be in vain.

  Corn-fields behind, and reapers all a-row

  In weariest labour, toiling wearily,

  To no sweet sound of laughter, or of lute;

  And careless of the crimson sunset-glow,

  The boy still dreams; nor knows that night is nigh,

  And in the night-time no man gathers fruit.

  THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY

  Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed

  Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;

  Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,

  And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.

  And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,

  In the still chamber of yon pyramid

  Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,

  Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

  Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb

  Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,

  But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb

  In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,

  Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom

  Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

  Rome

  SANTA DECCA

  The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring

  To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!

  Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,

  And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,

  For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning

  By secret glade and devious ha
unt is o’er:

  Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;

  Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.

  And yet – perchance in this sea-tranced isle,

  Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,

  Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.

  Ah Love! If such there be, then it were well

  For us to fly his anger: nay, but see,

  The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.

  Corfu

  THEORETIKOS1

  This mighty empire hath but feet of clay

  Of all its ancient chivalry and might

  Our little island is forsaken quite:

  Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,

  And from its hills that voice hath passed away

  Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,

  Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit

  For this vile traffic-house, where day by day

  Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,

  And the rude people rage with ignorant cries

  Against an heritage of centuries.

  It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art

  And loftiest culture I would stand apart,

  Neither for God, nor for his enemies.

  AMOR INTELLECTUALIS1

  Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly

  And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown

  From antique reeds to common folk unknown:

  And often launched our bark upon that sea

  Which the nine Muses hold in empery,

  And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,

  Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home

  Till we had freighted well our argosy.

  Of which despoiled treasures these remain,